The first 15 minutes of "Up" were superb. The rest of it was middle-of-the-road Pixar. I'd rank it as the third best animated film I saw this year, behind THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG and FANTASTIC MR. FOX. Nowhere near as astonishing as last year's WALL-E.

IB seemed like a lock to me when it was nominated for Best Picture and Director at the Globes, but I guess time will tell.



What about Coraline? I guess that would be fourth huh?

(500) Days of Summer is definitely a long shot, but I think Inglourious Basterds will get Best Picture nomination, especially since there will be 10 nominees this year. Unfortunately that means that you're probably right about The Blind Side and Invictus getting nominations as well, which would be a damn shame. I still think the nominee expansion was lame and a mistake.

I thought it was better than Wall-E and it will easily make my top 10 for the year

Before people start posting their own top 10s here I'll mention that James Too created a thread for that in the Lists section:
http://reelviews.net/reelviewsforum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1989

I'm slightly surprised that Brothers didn't make it since James hinted that it would likely be included.

I have to say I was surprised to see Avatar listed as number one. The reason I've always followed JB is because he almost always has a similar viewpoint to myself and so I can trust him to know whether or not to see a movie. Not in this case, though.

Avatar was pretty... exceedingly pretty. It was a visual spectacle, for sure. The story lacked, though, and -might- have been somewhat fresh 15 years ago, but was not today. To call it the best movie of 2009 is very surprising to me.

There was only one scene that I found vaguely engaging in the whole story, and that was when Neytiri came face to face with Jake as a human. It was hardly explored, though, and the intrigue quickly faded.

But, well, opinions. Will still happily continue to read, of course

Man...if only Mary and Max got a proper theatrical release, I assure you that movie would be dominating many top 10 lists. James, I know you probably get bugged all the time to check out different movies, but I really hope that some day you find Mary and Max as I think it's the absolute best animated film I've ever seen and easily my #1 pick of best movie this year.

Though I'm not sure where to find it. I know you can download the torrent of it at isohunt.



Blind Side? Ugh! Now I know that I shouldn't judge a movie before seeing it, but based on the trailer, the story's been done a thousand times and it looks so cliched. I especially despise the:

"Looks like you've changed his life"
"No...he's changed mine."

I'm also getting tired of the whole "Thank God for the kind white person for saving this poor ethnic person" which is seen an awful lot in Hollywood movies.



While I disagree with you on Fantastic Mr. Fox (I'm getting tired of Wes Anderson and I felt like all his weaknesses were very apparent in this movie), and I haven't seen Princess & Frog, I'll agree about UP. I think it's the 2nd weakest Pixar movie behind the extremely mediocre and generic Cars. Nemo, Incredibles, Wall-E and even Ratatouille are far better.

The first half is brilliant, the 2nd half of the movie is painfully mediocre and forgettable. I also have to say that the relationship between the old man and the little kid is surprisingly weak and not really that touching.

As far as sci-fi movies go, district 9 is FAR superior to Avatar. I think the aliens in district 9 looked much better than the ones in avatar. The story was so much better in district 9 as well. I didn't care about any character in avatar half as much as I cared about the main character and alien in district 9.

I have to say I really disagree with "Inglorious Bastards" at 2nd place. In an otherwise good list, this film doesn't fit. If anything, it should be closer to the bottom of any top 10 list. If you want to see a superb WWII thriller, rent Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book." That film is better than Inglorious Basterds and actually placed on James' top 10 of 2006. Thankfully, Avatar came along to knock "IB" out of the #1 position.

I agree that Inglourious Basterds should not be #2. It was the best movie of the year.

cosign

Thats EXACTLY how I feel! After re-watching D9 on blu ray this week, I was reminded again why I loved the movie so much, and was my personal #1 of the year.

I actually think Basterds is the semi-frontrunner for Best Pic, along with Up in the Air and perhaps Avatar. I just feel like the Academy is ready to honor Tarantino this year.



I think Up could be considered the weakest Pixar movie yet. It didn't even engage me as much as Cars.

Agree with the latter statement, but The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Finding Nemo was stuff I liked less than Up.

The Incredibles is my favorite Pixar, but Finding Nemo is definitely overrated.

I thoroughly enjoyed Avatar as pure escapist entertainment, but I can't agree with it as the number one film of the year. Too many flaws in the story for me. Otherwise, JB has a great list.

I'll sign that too.

Adventureland's placement will prompt me to rent it finally, I hoped D9 would rank higher, maybe 3rd or 4th. All things considered, another solid list sir.

The only puzzling absence (for me anyway) is Star Trek, but I understand that your response would be more tepid than a non-fan's, and the first time I saw it was at the world premier (considering how much I enjoyed zombieland at the world premier, this goes to show how that colors your viewing experience). But I enjoyed it just as much a few months later on dvd. I would agree the time travel elements seemed unnecessary, but I thought they worked well enough.

Still feel the same about Star Trek?

It wasn't storytelling flaws that did in Avatar for me, which on the whole was epic and blew my expectations out of the water. Dialog like "I'd have to take it to a whole different level" and "let's dance" were off-putting. I thought the story was great, but I'm pretty forgiving (read: engrossed and oblivious) when it comes to plot holes.

You may be right in that IB will make the cut. But the current front-runner is THE HURT LOCKER, with UP IN THE AIR a little behind. I'd bet a whole lot of money that IB will not win the Oscar.